Restless
Unfulfilling books and angsty short films make me restless.
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Resolution
I don’t think I’ve ever actually made a New Year’s resolution. Certainly I’ve never kept one. But this year, there are some things I’d definitely like to do and see. So my resolution is to go exploring. Hopefully that will include lots of fishing.
On death
Today a high school friend of mine died of breast cancer. She was 30, I think. Close to my age. She leaves a husband and three boys, and friends and family who watched her chronicle the end of her life on Facebook.
I wasn’t very close to her — we lost touch after high school – so I hesitate to say something that will upset anyone. Yet I’ve been sitting here for an hour since I found out, trying to remember how I’ve rationalized others’ deaths in order to understand this one. But that’s what’s bothering me: rationalizing is like putting round pegs in square holes and thinking that as long as the pegs don’t fall out, they must fit; in short, it often makes sense just to the person twisting logic to fit the situation.
Maybe it’s just me, but every time a friend or relative dies, the choice between faith and reason becomes all the more clear. And I just don’t think I can choose faith anymore. I quit believing in miracles a long time ago, and now I don’t really see the point of loving a god who does nothing.
Off the wall
Today I’m thinking of this German I couple I met two summers ago on the Snake River. We were all part of a rather ill-fated jetboat trip up Hells Canyon, and the couple — I think their names were Hans-Christian and Cristina, but I can’t remember her name for sure — were from the former East Germany. She told me, in her thick accent, that ever since the wall came down, they’ve travelled abroad every summer to make up for the half of their life when they couldn’t.
Overheard
Three women at the Patisserie
Blonde No. 1: You really need to touch up your roots.
Blonde No. 2: Well, I’m thinking of going back to my original color.
Blonde No 3: Ugh. Who would want brown hair? I mean, especially in the winter?
Me: glare.
Neglect
Technically, I’ve not been totally neglectful of the blog: I did have two posts up here that didn’t quite make the transition to the new server (hey, did you notice? four days and no crashes! huzzah!), but I’m way too lazy to go find them and repost them. They weren’t that good, anyway.
Let me briefly recap what happened between my last post and now: My sister-in-law had her baby (as did my sister-in-law’s sister-in-law), and then BAM! Every woman in the world announced she was pregnant. Except me. And Lucy.
Speaking of babies, the big news is that (1) I have a new niece! And sorry, world, but my nieces are pretty much the cutest nieces of all the nieces. Although those Grable progeny are looking alright. Also, (2) I have full-time work lined up next quarter, and (3) I’m keeping busy with freelance jobs this quarter. So I’m making at least enough dollars to buy dog food, which fuels our local poop factory.
And now, having been working on freelance jobs, lesson planning, teaching, and more freelancing all day, I’m going to bedfordshire.
Wild, wiley rhetorical cards & pol. econ.
During an epic wine and cheese date last night at our neighbor’s house, we got to talking about my old idea to design a game based on political economies. So today, after a good long lie-in, I started working on that.
Thus far, I’m fleshing out the different political ideologies and their economic counterparts (e.g. fascist, totalitarian, communist, socialist, libertarian, and anarchist states, as well as republics, democracies, social democracies, and juntas). It’s been fun to learn and re-learn what a lot of these mean, but it’s slow-going!
The basic premise of the game is that you have to create a wealthy state with a happy populace; so, a capitalistic democracy might become wealthy, but its happiness index would be difficult because of the class oppression capitalism necessarily creates; likewise, a fascist state might depend on patriotism and nationalism with fiercely loyal citizens, but it might have a difficult time creating wealth and prosperity. The mechanics have yet to be designed, but suffice it to say, it’s looking complicated.
Obviously this is very early on, and I’m going to have to combine or limit the number of similar states (republic, democracy, social democracy are somewhat closely related, as are totalitarian, fascist, and junta states, as are libertarian and anarchist states, as are socialist and communist…there’s a whole huge spectrum). But what I’m working on right now are the Wild Rhetorical Cards! Since rhetoric and the careful use of language is at the base of much political force, these essentially wild cards you play to either help yourself or hurt your opponent, particularly when it comes to wielding influence over others, be they other players or your populace.
For example, you might play the John-McCain-inspired Maverick card to do something that would ordinarily piss someone off, but allows you to get away with it just this once; perhaps there could be an Argentinian Love Affair card you could play on an opponent to undermine his or her regime’s popularity; the Lose Your Voice card means you lose control of influencing anyone.
I’ve considered the following, but am not sure exactly how they’d be used yet:
Conservative Blowhard
Loony Liberal
Debate (you win or lose based on the roll of the dice)
Ann Coulter/Maureen Dowd Mudfight (sorry, couldn’t resist…)
Freedom, which lets you do something invoking “freedom,” like ease restrictions or declare a war (?)
I know it probably sounds pretty sketchy at this point, but if you happen to make sense of this rambling and feel inspired, your suggestions for Wild Rhetorical Cards are more than welcome.
oh how the mighty…
me: let’s go to the grocery store.
matt: sure, but can we swing by the craft store first?
He’s alive, but only just barely
Transcript of yesterday’s e-mail exchange:
chelsey: you killed my butternut squash. prepare to meet my shovel as it swings at your head.
matt: I’m so sorry! I thought it was that inedible hybrid thing that produced squash-colored rocks! I’ll ask you first, the next time I use the shovel as a machete.